So I do agree with sirc on this one. The worst thing you can do for a fatty with a lifetime of bad habits is to give them a proper program. It is too complicated and leads to failure

Seconded. My limited personal experience has found the same. My friends, and I who have started simple and fixed our diet a little at a time have stuck with it and now eat very well. Those who dive in head first and try to do everything at once seem to fail. For me it was swapping sodas for water. Once I was used to that, I moved on to something else. Before you know it Baboom! Nutrition!

didn't read all but did you gain weight just to loose it so you could mock your fat friend with low self esteem? if the answer is mostly yes then I hope your friend is a gypsy because I need some gypsy tears

-How are you measuring that it is pure fat lost, rather than muscle, fat, and water, which is usually lost on a calorie restriction diet?
-She does have a point in that there is more to it than diet and exercise for women in terms of hormonal flux, but that wasn't what her excuses were in regards to.

But that's just nit-pickey

Agreed, you would have to measure body fat % in order to see what type of weight you lost.

Also, it IS harder for women to lose weight then men. Their bodies have more estrogen and less muscle mass meaning they have to work a lot harder to achieve similar results and their bodies are predisposed to having a higher amount of body fat.

It did sound like your friend was just complaining and could do more to be proactive, but your experiment is flawed.

Your experiment was stupid. You're a skinny, ectomorphic dude with, I'm guessing, a fast metabolism. I takes basically no effort for you to lose weight --I bet you have a lot of trouble putting muscle mass on.

But your basic point is correct. You friend is fat in part because she chooses to be, although there also may be physiological reasons. Fat loss is mostly about psychology and habits, not much more. Yes, there are tricks and efficient ways to do things. But the upshot is to eat well and exercise. It's amazing what you can do when you make simple changes -- drop calorie containing drinks, drop most processed foods, etc. It's not rocket science. And you make a commitment to exercise. Once you get those things down, you can tweak things for better results. (And I say this as as meso-endomorph who was over fat for years).